LA Senate considers banning smoke indoors

[TAPrice]

According to the Times Picayune, the Louisiana Senate is considering banning pretty much all indoor smoking:

http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/ind...07193277020.xml

I gave up smoking years ago, but I'm still a little sad that people might not be able to smoke in New Orleans bars soon. I'm perfectly happy to see if disappear from restaurants. Of course, the casual respect for the law down here might mean that the ban is never enforced.

[JohnnyH]

There's been a lot written on this site about this kind of legislation, specifically with regard to the laws passed in NYC not long ago. As I remember, it generated some pretty lively discussion -- people seem to have pretty firm ideas on what they believe on this one.

I have a feeling that you and I agree. My own feeling is that bar owners should be free to operate according to their own wishes; I don't mind barring smoking in restaurants. It's tough enought to make a living -- let alone a good one -- in this business. If bar owners thought a blanket no smoking policy was a money maker, they'd have done it on their own.

[Rachel Perlow]

Not commenting on pending legislation, but I did notice a lack of smokiness in most of the restaurants we went to last week. We even sat at the bar at Drago's and I didn't smell any (cigarette) smoke -- charbroiling oyster smoke, yes, but no ciggies.

[TAPrice]

Yeah, I'm more likely to notice when someone is smoking. It's pretty rare. It's not even that common in bars.

It just seems to contradict the attitude in New Orleans to ban smoking in bars. This is the place that has never heard of last call.

[Toliver]

California was one of the first to ban indoor smoking and I've yet to hear of a bar in the state that went out of business because of the law. Of course, it happened in stages so the public was sort of eased into it.

[TAPrice]

California was one of the first to ban indoor smoking and I've yet to hear of a bar in the state that went out of business because of the law.

←

Trust me, I have no concerns that anything will make the people of New Orleans stop drinking.

[bavila]

Trust me, I have no concerns that anything will make the people of New Orleans stop drinking.

←

Amen to that. When we were there recently, it just seemed like there was something in the air encouraging everyone to imbibe -- a lot. I didn't notice this as an undergrad -- perhaps because I was too busy imbibing. And I may have been particularly sensitive on this trip with my sober pregnant self, looking longingly at my other's cocktails.